


The Dark Deep of Winter

by Wordancer



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 03:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17675780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordancer/pseuds/Wordancer
Summary: Will isn't quite prepared for what he finds deep in the Alaskan wilderness.





	The Dark Deep of Winter

**Author's Note:**

> In which Hannibal is his usual inscrutable self, Will makes like Belle, and the dogs have had enough of this madness.

Will Graham whistled as he hitched his dogs up to the sled. “Ready, Winston?” He ruffled Winston’s head and smiled as the dog yipped up at him from his position at the lead of the pack.

“Are you sure you can handle this expedition?” Dr. Alana Bloom looked worried from where she stood next to Jack at the front door of the research station, waiting to see him off. Will stared up at her. Truth to be told, after the disaster of the last run, he wasn’t sure.

“He’s ready. Right, Will?” Jack looked at him, chin tilted up in a show of strength.

“Right.” Will tried not to think about the days he’d spent in the hospital with frostbite from last time.

“And it’s crucial that he does this trip. He’s the only one with the expertise to accurately document the seals’ migration patterns.”

Alana cocked her head. “What about-”

“Nobody else can be spared at the base.” Jack spoke over Alana.

“Thanks,” Will muttered and turned to stand on the sled’s runners. He gripped the handle and looked back one last time. “So long, then.”

“Bye, Will,” Alana said.

“Do good work,” Jack said.

“Yeah.” Suddenly itching to leave, Will turned to the dogs and yelled, “Mush!” With a chorus of barks, the dogs surged ahead.

Will enjoyed the solitude of the Alaskan wilderness. When the Smithsonian Institute had announced open applications to the research program there, he had been one of the first to apply, tired of the noise and distraction of the modern world. The only challenge that troubled him was surviving the harsh climate.

The dogs made good time to the first waypoint, and Will felt tentatively optimistic about this trip as he unpacked his sleeping gear for the night and warmed his dinner. He took out the bag of dog treats and went outside, where the dogs were digging beds out of the snow for the night. He went from den to den and fed each a treat, smiling down at the pack that had stood by him through thick and thin, in all the trips he’d made since coming out here.

The next day went smoothly, and it took until they were well into the third day before things started going wrong. It started out innocently enough, with the wind picking up and blowing snow into Will’s face as he sledded through the gently rolling hills, but soon the wind began to whistle and howl.

Will kept going as long as he could, determined to make it to the next waypoint, but there was no fighting the blizzard that the dogs valiantly drew the sled into at Will’s urging, too far from the last waypoint to turn around and make it back before dark. It was with a great deal of effort and struggle that they made it to the next safe house, and Will brought the dogs in with him, not wanting to risk their health in the onslaught of wind and snow.

It was with growing unease that Will watched the storm rage on outside the window. He could hear the howling of wolves in the distance, and so could the dogs, who were restless, coming to him often for reassurance. Sleep didn’t come easily that night.

The next day, he woke to Winston licking his face. He smiled and patted him on the head. “Yes, fine, breakfast is on its way,” he said with a groan as he rolled out of bed. He went and got food for the dogs, who sat at attention, well-trained, until he whistled permission for them to get at their meals. The dogs seen to, he walked over to the window and groaned. The glass was completely blocked with snow. He tried to open the door to the cabin, and with a great deal of forcing, it finally opened to let down a cascade of ice and snow on Will’s head.

Swearing, Will waded into the three foot deep snow outside, going to check on the equipment. His swearing became more pronounced as he took in the state of the sled. One of the runners was broken and splintered. “How did this happen?” Will muttered to himself as he bent down to check the damage. He stood back up and put his hands on his hips. There was nothing close to the sled that it could have crashed into, and he looked around in confusion.

“Regardless, it needs to get fixed,” Will said. He went out into the forest that grew thickly around the cabin. The snow sparkled in the bright sunlight, and the air bit at Will’s nose with cold. He selected a nicely sized branch for the repair and dragged it back to the cabin. Shivering, he brought it back inside, not willing to brave the cold for as long as it would take to whittle a new runner.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of work, the dogs resting by the fire and Will completely absorbed in cutting out and smoothing down a replacement runner for the sled. As darkness fell, he looked up, distracted, from work he could no longer see well enough to complete. He got up, stretched, and lit a few candles before sitting down again to get back to work.

The wind howled outside, making the hairs on the back of Will’s neck rise as he fought flashbacks of the last time he’d been caught out in the cold. Unable to refocus on his work, he got up and threw another log on the fire, holding his hands out to warm them. The dogs looked up questioningly at him as he walked past them, and he sighed. “I know,” he told them, “it’s not that cold. I guess I’m not as recovered as I thought.”

He heard a snapping sound outside, most likely a tree exploding from the cold, and he rubbed his hands together. The wind shrieked, and another tree burst apart with a resounding crack. Will heard something thunk against the side of the house. Winston jumped to his feet and started barking. “Hey, hey now,” Will said, rushing to comfort him. When Winston settled back down among the other dogs, who whined uneasily, Will walked to one of the windows to try and look outside. “Strange.” Another whack sounded from the side of the house, and he heard a crack from somewhere nearby.

“That better not be the sled again,” Will muttered. He lit a lantern and went outside to check on it, wading through the snow and squinting to see through the dark. A dark shape moved in the corner of his eyes, and he turned, holding the lantern up high, to find nothing. He took a deep breath, the cold air burning his lungs, and turned back to find the sled, when he heard the crunch of snow.

“Who -” Will’s teeth started chattering. “Who’s there?” There was no reply, save for another crunching sound. “Show yourself!”

Some great dark shape separated from the black night and walked slowly closer. Will took a step back, then steeled himself and held the lantern higher to see what looked like a man step into the light. “Who are you?” Will asked, his voice sharp with fear.

The man cocked his head to the side and smiled slightly, and fangs poked out from beneath his lips. “You can see me?” He asked. The moment he spoke, the wind calmed into an unsettling quiet. His hair shifted to the side to show pointed ears. His high cheekbones were sharp enough to slice through the air, and his generous lips were a startling contrast to the angular features of the rest of his face. He wore clothing that Will could not describe, dark and feathered and not quite normal, as if perhaps it was not clothing at all but instead a part of the not-man, like fur was a part of a dog.

Will stared. “What are you?” He asked, voice shaking. He wasn’t sure he could handle it if he started hallucinating again, and he couldn’t find another explanation for what he was seeing.

“That’s a rude question to ask,” the not-man said, his voice silky smooth.

“No more rude than sneaking up on someone in the middle of the night,” Will snapped.

“Touche.” The not-man looked amused. “They call me Hannibal. What do they call you?”

“Will.”

“Aren’t you going to invite me inside? The night is dark and dangerous, and I am weary from my long journey.”

“Journey from where?” Will asked, curiosity winning against fear and bewilderment.

“From court, of course.”

“What court?”

“The Winter Court of the Fae,” Hannibal said.

“So, you’re a fairy,” Will said, half-laughing in disbelief.

“That’s one word for it.” Hannibal fell silent for a moment. “It is the height of rudeness to keep someone waiting on an invitation for so long.”

“Fine.” Will laughed to himself. “Why not? Oh, Lord Fairy, won’t you come inside?”

Hannibal’s half-smile grew into a wide grin, revealing a row of jagged, sharp teeth. “I would be delighted.”

The dogs all piled into the furthest corner of the room when Hannibal stepped inside, and he spared them a dismissive glance.

“Have a seat,” Will gestured half-heartedly at the furniture and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I can’t believe it’s happening again.”

“What is happening again?” Hannibal asked as he sat in an armchair and crossed one leg over the other.

“Oh, nothing. Just seeing things, for no good reason.”

“You believe I am a hallucination?” Hannibal looked intrigued.

“I know you are.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because there’s no way you could be real.”

Hannibal smiled. “Why?”

“Because…because,” Will laughed. “Just because! I mean, seriously, even if fairies did exist, what would bring you here, of all places?”

Hannibal steepled his fine-boned fingers together. His nails were filed into points, or perhaps, Will thought, feeling ridiculous, they grew that way. “Would you believe that I am hungry, and bored, and looking for some amusement after a long and difficult spell at court?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Will scoffed.

Hannibal’s eyes narrowed. “What would it take to make you believe otherwise?”

“To be honest, I don’t even know anymore.” Will rubbed his forehead. “I guess feeling something. I didn’t feel things last time. But that might have been because I was so frostbitten that I couldn’t.”

“Very well.” Hannibal stood, and in the space of a breath, he had crowded into Will’s space. He loomed over him, and the ruff of feathers around his shoulders made him seem larger and more intimidating than his stature already did. He then shifted forward, and in another second, had Will pinned to the back of his armchair by his throat.

“Whoa,” Will said, breathless.

After a long moment where Will struggled and failed to breathe, Hannibal stepped back and released him. Will stared up from where he sat, not moving. “How?”

“I must be real, mustn’t I?” Hannibal grinned slowly, revealing his incisors again, and this time the sight struck terror in Will’s bones.

“Okay, okay,” Will said, shakily getting up from his seat and walking around the room. “Say I did believe that you were real.”

“Yes?” Hannibal looked intently at Will “What would you do then?”

“I would run!” Will grabbed the handle of the door and ran out into the night, the dogs following behind him. The cold stole his breath out of his lungs as he scrambled over snowdrifts into the forest. A howling reaching his ears, growing closer, and his dogs barked madly.

He kept running, stumbling into drift after drift of snow, the stuff getting into his boots and coating his gloves. He came upon a clearing lit by the moon, and he stopped there to get his bearings, looking behind himself to see if anyone was following but unable to see too far. A growl sounded out from the forest, and Will froze as a pack of wolves walked into the clearing. His dogs growled back, and after a moment where all action hung in suspension, the wolves sprang into action. Will instinctively held his hands up in front of his face.

He heard a great crunch and roar, and then whining and yelping, and he dropped his hands to see a frenzy of motion in front of him. Hannibal whirled with savage grace from wolf to wolf, ripping out throats with his sharp fingers and teeth, a deadly combination of strength and dark beauty. Will couldn’t tear his eyes away, and soon there was nothing left but the carcasses of the wolves, and Will standing before Hannibal, his dogs long since run away.

“You…” Will stared, eyes wide. Hannibal looked down at his bloodied hands and wiped at his bloodied mouth, but he only succeeded in spreading the blood further. “…saved my dogs,” Will blurted out.

“I did,” Hannibal spoke as he walked slowly closer. “You do not react the way most would.”

“I guess not.”

“I find that I am not yet ready to see you die.”

“Good. Neither am I.”

Hannibal walked closer. “I should like to cook you dinner and continue our conversation.”

Will couldn’t stop looking at the strange, compelling creature he had discovered in the Alaskan wilderness. “I think I’d like that.”

So it was that they went back to the cabin after collecting Will’s dogs, and Hannibal cooked the wolves into a fine stew, and they began the slow, intimate dance of getting to know each other better.


End file.
